How do you get ideas for your product roadmap?

*Customer Feedback: Regularly collect insights from users to understand their needs and pain points. *Market Research: Analyze industry trends and competitor offerings to identify gaps and opportunities. *Stakeholder Input: Engage with internal teams for their perspectives on product features and priorities. *Data Analysis: Use analytics to assess user behavior and feature performance, guiding future developments. *Brainstorming Sessions: Organize collaborative meetings to generate innovative ideas and solutions. *Prototyping and Testing: Create prototypes to gather user feedback before finalizing features for the roadmap.

Gather feedback from users through surveys, interviews, usability testing, and support interactions. Pay attention to common pain points, feature requests, and suggestions for improvement. Use qualitative and quantitative research methods to gain insights into user needs, preferences, and behaviors.

Sometimes the best way to understand your user is actually to be the user. Take your application to a spin, try working with it, do you see any pain point? Are you able to work with the application? do you understand the UI? Does it do what you think it should do? Document your experience and use it as a basis to your future interactions with your cusotmers.

The key is to organize the backlog around problems, not solutions. Users often struggle to predict their behaviors accurately, but they can provide valuable insights into their problems. It's better to inquire about past experiences than to focus solely on future predictions. The 'Five Whys' method can be particularly effective in uncovering the true intentions behind user needs. Why is it critical? Why is it important? Asking these questions iteratively can reveal deeper insights. Once you gather qualitative insights, it's essential to corroborate them with quantitative data.

*Conduct user research to understand customer needs and pain points *Analyze market trends and competitor offerings to identify opportunities *Collaborate with cross-functional teams and stakeholders to generate innovative ideas *Collect and prioritize ideas using idea management software or brainstorming sessions *Review customer feedback, support tickets, and feature requests for additional input

Align your product roadmap with the overall business goals and strategic priorities of your organization. Consider factors such as revenue targets, growth objectives, target markets, and competitive positioning. Identify areas where your product can contribute to the achievement of broader business objectives.

To define your product strategy, use past and existing products performance, insight (market, customer, sales, competition) and internal brain power. Be clear on capability and capacity (resources) and strategy (business) as you must work within these constraints.

Prioritization can be a daunting process, especially if you have a big backlog. To help, and also get internal alignment, consider value vs. cost & risk. - Examples of "value" criteria: revenue, NPV, reduction of tech debt... - Examples of "cost & risk" criteria: complexity, skills, tools, timeline... Use what makes sense for you, put a weight against criteria and score each feature against each criteria (e.g., 1 to 5). Create a visual chart (low to high value vs. high to low cost/risk) and you can select your preferred option by making the trade-off that makes sense for you.

Using a tool or a complex methodology silently means that in someway you believe that you have exhausted all the obvious ways to make life simpler for consumers. In my experience that is rarely the case. I use this interesting way called "Voyages" Its possible you have heard this called by other names. Its a simple and straight forward way for unlocking powerful insights. Take a Voyage with the end user. Practice empathy and chart the journey. Not in tech terminology but merely as a customer centered experential journal. You then capture these into story boards and build narratives called user-stories. In most cases, heatmaps will emerge leading to themes that can add to your roadmap.

Once you identify a solution to user pain points, always validate it before implementation. In my experience with internal tools and B2B products, I've found that users are often willing to engage in discussions about the product. I collaborate with designers to develop variations of the solutions we plan to implement and guide users through these prototypes. This process helps me confirm my hypotheses, identify potential issues or bugs, and uncover any workflow gaps I might have missed beforehand. It ensures that the final solution meets user expectations and effectively addresses their pain points. Once you have the conclusions from these discussions, update your roadmap to implement the variations and features that worked well.

Before communicating your roadmap at the company level, it's essential to discuss it with your team first. Your team should feel empowered to influence and enact changes. This communication process can serve as a source of motivation, fostering a sense of ownership and involvement. Encourage them to ask questions and assure them that their input will be valued. By ensuring that your team understands both user problems and business objectives, they can contribute valuable ideas. It's advisable to hold these discussions regularly, at least once a quarter, to maintain alignment and foster continuous improvement.

As a product leader, I'm constantly tuned in to market trends, customer feedback, and emerging technologies. I leverage data-driven insights, customer interviews, and industry research to fuel our product roadmap. By staying agile and adaptable, we're able to respond swiftly to evolving customer needs and market demands, ensuring our roadmap remains both relevant and innovative.

To land your roadmap: - own it - understand who reads it - pick the right roadmapping tool for you (e.g., Aha, Confluence, Product Board, Roadmunk...) - ask Sales for their feedback - do it with an agile mindset: start big, start small, iterate fast